A Contribution to Improve the Accuracy of Chatter Prediction in Machine Tools Using the Stability Lobe Diagram

The chatter phenomenon can severely limit the power available for milling. The stability lobe diagram (SLD) is a very fast and simple method to predict the chatter free zone, allowing the selection of the most adequate spindle speed and depth of cut for higher productivity. However, the data used to calculate the SLD, coming from frequency response functions (FRFs), must be acquired adequately to improve the predictability. FRFs result differently depending on the activation of the spindle electronic control. The present work uses SLDs to investigate these differences and experimental end milling tests to assess the accuracy of SLDs curves. Results indicate that the inclusion of spindle electronic control provides better accuracy in predicting the chatter in milling.